


Security

by rivkat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Eight crazy nights, curtainfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-03
Updated: 2011-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivkat/pseuds/rivkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For sanj. Can be read as Sam/Dean or gen, as you like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Security

When it’s over, Sam finds them a house for rent, cheaper than a month at a motel. Dean doesn’t tell Sam that he sleeps better in a place that feels like it’s not supposed to be somebody’s home. Dean doesn’t mind the restlessness that much. He’d rather not be trapped in sleep anyway. He doesn’t remember his dreams, but when he wakes he never feels better, so he figures they’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect for a guy with so many nightmares to choose from.

Sam puts their stuff in the same bedroom, at least. Means they’re sharing a California king, which is just barely big enough, but Dean doesn’t say a word, even with Sam peeking out from under his bangs as if expecting some of Dean’s usual aspersions on his masculinity. Things are still fragile enough that if he complains Sam might well call his bluff, and Dean isn’t ready for that. Dean’s not sure if he’ll be able to sleep at all without the sound of Sam breathing nearby, the glow of his laptop, even the sour smell of his dirty clothes.

What Dean really doesn’t like, what makes a roadside motel ten times better, is that in a house the door and the windows are on freaking _opposite sides_ of the room, which defeats his usual side-picking strategy. On the occasions they’ve stayed in motels where the doors are on a central corridor, Dean’s reluctantly chosen the door side, after closing the curtains and salting and blessing the windowsills, but he’s never been comfortable with that. For some reason his agitation is worse in a house, even though they’re on the second floor and so he should have a lot less to worry about in terms of what might come through the window. Being up that high just makes him nervous. If there was an emergency (a fire), it’d be the stairs or a broken bone, and that’s just not enough choices.

Sam seems content to be where they are, and it’s not like Dean’s got some better plan (drive, drive, drive, let the road run forever on—Dean knows that’s a song and not something he gets to have). The house is always cold, but Sam doesn’t say anything and Dean gives up tinkering with the heater after the first week because it never seems to make any difference. Sam buys food at the grocery store four blocks away and carries the bags back: it’s bad for the environment to drive such short distances, Dean. Dean rolls his eyes and cooks; it’s _criminal_ what Sam can do to innocent cuts of meat, and not the good kind of criminal either.

Sam spends his days at the library. Or he tells Dean so, and Dean knows what will happen if he checks up on Sam and gets caught, which is pretty much the way his luck runs, so he decides to believe Sam. There are a bunch of things Sam can do at the library that end up with Sam elsewhere, so it’s plausible enough.

Dean spends his days restocking. They are near to out of regular ammo, not having bothered with that during the almost-Apocalypse, and he drives around until he finds a gun shop where the owner has the right kind of memorabilia over the door and behind the counter. Dad knew almost all of them, but it’s been years and new folks are popping up, especially with all the shit that had gone down with Lucifer. This one’s a woman, reminds Dean of Ellen but maybe that’s just the fact that he misses her and he doesn’t have any better models for scary mom-type hot chicks. He wants very much to get down on his knees for Lexa, but she’s wearing a ring and also, much as he wants it, he knows he’s not in any shape to risk rejection by someone whose opinion matters to him for even a second.

So all he does is pay for the bullets, and the more exotic equipment, with their cash reserves. Then he goes to the magic shop Lexa refers him to, which allows him to replace what Lexa couldn’t help him with.

After that he doesn’t have much to do, other than detail the car. He’s been neglecting her for too long, so that eats up a couple of days, but Sam’s still heading to the library first thing in the morning, never a word about what he’s doing there. Dean remembers when he had to tune out Sam’s recap of his day—kid could give you every detail of what the teachers had said and still find time to explain who among his classmates wanted to get in whose pants—and while he doesn’t want that back (learned well enough that Sam wasn’t that boy any more and Dean had no business trying to keep him in a box, even if the box would’ve held him), he’d appreciate some sort of one-sentence summary. He isn’t looking forward to “I’ve found a school that will take my credits from Stanford,” but he’d appreciate some warning that it’s coming.

And, yeah, a lot of his internal whining is jealousy, he gets that. If he had more than a GED and a bad attitude, if he’d seen normal as close as Sam had for more than a couple hallucinated/angel-wiped days, he’d be aching to jump on that train too. He lets himself wallow because he’s decided he’s going to be happy for Sam when the time comes, and the promise is what lets him indulge in the meantime.

So it’s kind of a shock when he comes back to the house from a day spent doing a little recon for a friend of Lexa’s, a hunter who wants to get some experience with black dogs, and finds Sam all set up in the dining room, Dean’s favorite mac and cheese in a baking dish Sam must’ve scared up from somewhere, a beer sweating right by Dean’s plate.

This is it, Dean thinks, and it’s a relief, like finally seeing the ghost or feeling the werewolf’s hot breath at the back of your neck.

“Why the party?” he asks, proud that his smirk feels like it’s working. Wasted effort, because Sam’s staring down at his plate, willing to stick the knife in but not to watch the blood—and no, Dean’s not gonna be that guy. This is hard, really hard, and Sam’s entitled to his defenses same as Dean to his. Dean shuffles his feet, then sits down and serves himself, still waiting for Sam’s answer. He hunches into his jacket against the chill in the room, curses himself for giving up on the bastard heater.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sam says, low, his hair falling down over his eyes. “We should go back to Indiana.”

Dean takes a bite, chews. It’s really good. Dean kind of wants to ask whether Sam performed a ritual to improve his cooking, but he doesn’t think the joke would fly tonight. Swallows. “What’s in Indiana?”

Sam looks up now. His jaw is set, decision made. Dean feels something like a pain all down his right arm, fights to keep it off his face. “Lisa. And Ben.”

Dean doesn’t drop his fork, but it’s a near thing. “What?”

Sam’s nostrils flare. “Look, I know—I know what you want, what you think you can’t have. But things are different now, and—you’ll be an awesome father. I want you to get that, get out of this. You deserve—” He stops, and Dean is glad beyond the telling of it, because Sam tends to forget that any calculation of what Dean _deserves_ ought to take ten years in Hell into account.

Dean clears his throat. “What’s your plan, then?”

And there goes the eye contact. Sam plays with his food for a second. “I’ve been talking online to these hunters, there’s kind of a group of them. I was thinking I’d join up. Actually,” he grins, like they’re in some conspiracy together, “I’ve been using the name Sam Wesson.”

It was a good precaution, even if most of the people who knew the extent of the Winchesters’ involvement in nearly ending the world were already dead. If Dean forced aside the automatic rejection of putting Sam’s safety in anyone’s hands but his own, it wasn’t a terrible plan. Except–“I don’t get it,” putting every bit of honesty he possessed into the words. “I figured you were gonna, you know, retire.”

“Retire?” Sam repeats, as incredulous as if Dean had just suggested he join the ballet. “Dean, what I did—I can’t just walk away. I can’t—repentance isn’t enough. I’ve got to _do_ something, even if it’s never going to be enough.”

Dean’s hand jerks and he nearly knocks over his beer. He bolts to his feet, unable to do this without pacing. “And what the fuck do you think _I_ should be doing? First seal, last seal, there’s no difference! You think it’s okay for me to walk, or you just think I can’t cut it any more?”

“You could get out,” Sam repeats, like Dean will understand if he just says it louder. “You, you have this life waiting for you, and you could _have_ it.”

Dean scrubs at the back of his neck, looks down at his boots. They’re scuffed and they still have Lucifer’s blood on them, though honestly that makes him less likely to clean them rather than more. “’s not waiting for me, Sam.” He shoots Sam a look that makes his brother subside. “Lisa, she’s seeing this guy, works construction. I, uh, I got a text from Ben last week. He sounds happy. People move on.” Except for me, he thinks. Dean only moves in space. So in a way it’s perfect that he’s got forty more years on him than anyone thinks to look at him.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, subdued.

Dean shrugs. Maybe he fantasized, a lifetime ago, but who doesn’t? Sam might as well have picked Cassie, or Jamie, or any of a dozen others. “So, now that’s settled, is this you sayin’ you want to split up?”

Sam freezes. After a minute, he makes as if to stand up, then seems to think better of it, like he doesn’t want to spook Dean (which it wouldn’t’ve; Dean’s gotten over the split-second of wondering, when his brother approaches, whether it’s for good or ill). “I want what’s good for you,” he says cautiously.

Dean shouldn’t snigger, but he’s weak like that, and Sam gets this pissy look on his face that Dean never fails to find even more hilarious, and suddenly he’s laughing so hard he has to sit back down in his chair. By the time he’s able to stop, his stomach hurts and Sam looks like he’s fixing to come over and pound Dean a couple of good ones. “Sorry,” he gasps, slapping his hand down on the table and narrowly missing getting a palmful of cooling mac and cheese. “But do you really think either of us knows what’s good for us?”

Sam’s curled lip isn’t much of a smile, but it’ll do for a bandage. “When you put it like that …” he says.

“I thought you were planning to go back to school,” Dean admits, and it feels good to say the words, like he’s had food poisoning and just needed to empty himself out.

Sam shakes his head, but more like he’s just now figuring out what was going on in Dean’s mind (and if he does get it, he’s more than welcome to let Dean know; Dean’s often curious himself). “Afraid you’re stuck with me,” he says, and the room is suddenly about ten degrees warmer.

“Back at you,” Dean mumbles, then immediately stuffs a bite of dinner into his mouth and grabs at his beer. Maybe he’s overplaying it a little, but if they do more revelations now he’s seriously going to melt into a puddle of hunter goo on the floor, because he’s that fried.

Besides, he figures he can say more of what he’s got inside tonight, when the lights are off. Sam will give him that, easy.

Sam, maybe, will give him what he wants all around.


End file.
